Back when the Hornets were in the midst of winning 11 of their first 12 games, Williams said if his guys didn’t kick some of their bad habits — like turning over the ball too often, stagnating on offense and playing soft on defense — the winning would stop.

It now has.

The bad habits have continued, and now the Hornets have lost two games in a row.

The Hornets (11-3) committed 19 turnovers, including six in the fourth quarter; they stagnated on offense and let the shot-clock wind down on way too many occasions; and they allowed Utah to shoot 49 percent from the field.

Add it all up, and it amounted to a 105-87 loss to the Jazz (11-5) on Wednesday night at EnergySolutions Arena.

“I’ve said this for about six or seven games now that we were playing out of character, but we were winning games,” Williams said. “It comes back to bite you. When you mess with the game, it comes back and messes with you. This started a while ago.

"So we’ve got to get back to work, and do some things that we were doing before to get back.”

Atop the list of to-dos presumably would be limiting turnovers.

After Wednesday’s game in which Jazz guard Deron Williams scored 26 points and dished out 11 assists — both game-highs — to yet again outduel Hornets guard Chris Paul, who had 17 points and nine assists, Monty Williams pointed to turnovers as the chief reason why the Hornets fell.

“I thought that was the deciding factor — to give up that many turnovers,” Williams said. “They had 82 possessions; we had 69. You cannot do that on the road, cannot do that at any time, especially against a team like that.”

A lot of the extra possessions came when Utah was pulling away in the fourth quarter.

After trailing for most of the night, New Orleans pulled within five points at 82-77 with 10:10 remaining.

But that’s when the Jazz took full advantage of Hornets turnovers.

Jazz big man Al Jefferson had back-to-back baskets to start what was ultimately was a 19-5 Utah run, and Williams put the daggers in New Orleans with back-to-back baskets at the tail end.

“We were soft, obviously,” Paul said. “They really put it to us. They scored in all different ways, and most of all, they got in our paint, and that’s what teams have been doing against us the past few games.”

Meanwhile, New Orleans has been stagnant at the other end of the court the past few games.

That, too, was an issue Wednesday.

“I thought we were too easy to guard,” said New Orleans forward David West, who finished with 15 points and five rebounds. “We’re having to defend a lot of movement within their offense, but we’re not doing the same. We’re not putting enough pressure on the defenders.”

Reserve guard Willie Green, who had 13 points and four rebounds, echoed those sentiments.

“When you’re playing good teams, you’re not going to get away with some of the things that we were doing — turning the ball over, having late shot-clock situations where we (had) desperation shots that go in,” Green said. “When you’re playing good teams, they’re gonna force you to do other things, which they did today.”

All of which meant that Paul’s team fell to Williams’ team — yet again.

Head-to-head, Williams has simply been dominant against Paul since the two were selected third and fourth in the 2005 NBA Draft.

With Wednesday’s victory, Williams is now 12-3 against Paul.

“I don’t know,” said Paul when asked why the Hornets have struggled so much against Utah during his time in the NBA. “In this league, it’s all about matchups. You know what I mean? It’s always been a tough matchup. You can say it’s my fault — I don’t know — it’s just we’ve never really been able to grasp beating Utah.”